


areyouarealmonster's dctv "character + thing" prompt fills

by areyouarealmonster



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alcohol, Aromantic Mick Rory, Canonical Character Death, Coldatom (mentioned), Drowning, Food mention, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Kidstorm (mentioned), M/M, Timehex, Vomiting, abuse implied, each chapter will have warnings, not all things apply to all chapters, ray has celiac and it is uh not pleasant, suicide ideation, this is a collection of almost-drabbles, timeship (mentioned), tumblr prompt fills
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2018-12-12 12:03:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 55
Words: 11,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11736666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/areyouarealmonster/pseuds/areyouarealmonster
Summary: A collection of prompt fills. Chapter warnings will be posted at the beginning of each chapter.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ankahikoibaat sent: ray palmer + eating

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: food, vomiting (NOT disordered eating)

It’s not that Ray doesn’t like to eat. It’s just that, he forgets. It’s easy, when you’re wrapped up in a project, in a mission, in a person. 

 

Eating is just so much work, too, when you’re allergic to so much. It’s not just cats and dogs and anything with fur that Ray is allergic to–no, it’s  _foods_ , too. Even fabricated foods trigger his allergies. Ray had checked. Well, he’d experimented. Extensively.

 

Turns out, fabricated gluten comes up just as violently as the real thing. Ray’s sick for a month, not that the team notices. He’s learned to hide it well. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/163890126084/ray-palmer-eating)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous sent: ray palmer + wanting :) to :) die :))))))

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings: suicide ideation, death mention

> “If I’m gonna come back to life, I have to figure out what it is I’m living for.” -Ray Palmer, Arrow, s4e7

 

Ray doesn’t  _want_  to die. Of course not! That would be  _bad_  and  _worrisome_ and something that people get help for. Or, you know, should. 

 

It’s just that, well, you know how Tony Stark says to Steve Rogers that he’d rather just cut the wire than crawl over it? Yeah, that’s not Ray. If there’s something he can do, he’ll do it. No matter the consequences.

 

No matter if it costs him his life.

 

So he doesn’t  _want_  to die, not really. He just doesn’t really care if he lives or not, not if he can make a difference, with his death. Not if his dying saves countless lives, or even just one. 

 

It’s a fair trade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/163890868794/ray-palmer-wanting-to-die)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous sent: Jax + birthday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: alcohol

For Jax’s 21st birthday, the team offers to take him anywhere he wants. What he wants is  _home_. 

 

Dinner with his mom, first. Just the two of them, because he misses her, and they’re close. He tells her…what he can. Mostly he tells her about his friends, and she doesn’t quite understand the make-up of the team, but she’s glad her son is happy.

 

Then the team takes him out to drinks, along with Team Flash, and…Wally.

 

Wally’s just recently 21, an engineer, into cars. Jax falls instantly, he doesn’t need the first drink, or the second, or the third to feel woozy around the kid. Jax is too drunk to do anything at the end of the night past give Wally his number and a kiss on the cheek, but they text constantly after that, and spend time together whenever Jax is in town.

 

Best. Birthday. Ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/163891276109/jax-birthday)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous sent: Mick + Crowd

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warning: alcohol

Too many bodies, too much noise. Mick doesn’t shy away from touch, not like Snart used to, but the press of people jostle his arms, and the ghost of his pain. He used to revel in it, he used to use the pain to feed his anger, feed his  _fire_. 

 

But his fire’s an ember, now. Always ready to spark and catch, but it simmers, now, instead of raging. The people walking past, brushing past, going about their lives, only reminds him of the pain he’s caused. 

 

He tries not to think about it, but it’s unavoidable, in the bright light and the open. He prefers enclosed, dark spaces with a bottle of beer to drown out his thoughts. Or at least, he prefers it when he gets to punch someone and turn the noise into a quiet buzz, for a little while. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/163891598234/mick-crowd)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> shesthemuscle sent: Ray + Anger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warning: drowning mention

Push it down, keep it under, hold it under the surface like a head underwater, like drowning.

 

It doesn’t help, it doesn’t make anything better, it doesn’t bring her back. Or her. Or him. Or anyone.

 

What good does anger do, anyway? Lashing out only makes things worse, only makes things harder. 

 

But he does, anyway. He lashes out. The words slip out, the head pushes up, gasping, water spraying from hair and mouth and pouring off shoulders. 

 

It only makes him feel worse.

 

So he pushes it down, again, and again, and again, until the calm isn’t a facade, until the smile is real. Well, that’s the theory, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/163891903919/ray-anger)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ankahikoibaat sent: 'Ray’s sick for a month, not that the team notices. He’s learned to hide it well. ' wow rude I love it HOW DOES HE KNOW TO HIDE IT SO WELL THOUGH WHY TELL ME MORE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warning: vomiting (NOT from disordered eating)

Bathroom fans are loud enough to cover the noise. Of course, it’s easier when you live alone. Blasting music helps, anything to cover the retching and the soft sobs that pour from his mouth when anything gluten ravages his poor stomach. 

 

That spray that they sell at Bed Bath and Beyond, the one you spray in the toilet before you go #2, that helps cover anything else. If they can’t hear it and they can’t smell it, they don’t know. 

 

Ray invests in soft rugs to curl around the base of the toilet, to avoid bruised knees. He doesn’t curse food service workers who accidentally give him something with gluten, even though he’d like to. People make mistakes.

 

He just wishes other people’s mistakes didn’t  _hurt_  this much.

 

He spends a lot of money on dental services to keep his teeth shiny and cough drops to soothe his ravaged throat. Honey and hot tea  _do_  help, and he usually has a cup at hand, even though it’s usually cold by the time he remembers to drink it. 

 

It gets easier to manage, it does. Really. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/163892307669/rays-sick-for-a-month-not-that-the-team)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> terrayoung sent: Leonard Snart + touch, please?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no content warnings

Lisa always said he was like a cat. “You only wanna be touched on your terms, Lenny. Nobody’s allowed, except when you want them to. And then only for a little while, and then you hiss and bite.”

 

“I don’t  _hiss_ , Lisa.”

 

“Whatever you say, brother dear.”

 

But it’s true. Even with past lovers, Leonard’s never been much of a cuddler. 

 

It all changes when human puppy dog Ray Palmer bounds past the perimeter. (Lisa bursts out laughing when she meets Raymond for the first time, because, “ _Really_ , Lenny? A cat and a dog? How  _cliche_!”) 

 

Raymond doesn’t push Leonard into anything, but slowly eases him in instead. A brush of Raymond’s fingertips against his arm turns into a hand on his shoulder, then their fingers tangled together, then an arm around his waist. 

 

Sitting next to each other on the bridge turns into Raymond inviting him to drape his legs over his own, turns into leaning Leonard back against him on the couch and running fingers over his coarse, cropped hair. 

 

It turns into bodies wrapped around each other, curled up against each other, holding each other through the night instead of retreating to separate spaces. It turns into a craving, and once Leonard has tasted it, he can’t stop–can’t stop touching Raymond, can’t stop seeking out touch from the people he trusts. 

 

The people he loves. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/163892760099/leonard-snart-touch-please)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous sent: Len + scars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings: abuse mention/implied

The invisible scars are the ones everyone sees on Leonard. The way he holds himself at arms length, the deflections about most things personal. The scattered stories about his father, his childhood, Lisa. 

 

Everyone knows that Leonard Snart is damaged. In pain. Lonely.  _Angry_. 

 

The physical scars, the scars hidden under his layers of sweaters and jackets, only a select few know about those. Lisa, because she was there. Mick, because he bandaged up Leonard after some of them. Raymond, because he pushed in, past the barriers, past the walls. 

 

The physical scars, they stand out against his skin, random patterns running down his arms, criss-crossing his back, dotting his chest. Not all of them are from… _him_. But, enough are that Leonard stays covered up. 

 

“Don’t ever let anyone hurt you:” advice that he never knew how to take. He carries his scars, mental and physical, wherever he goes. They’re inescapable. But sometimes, he has someone to share the burden, for a little while. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/163894025369/len-scars)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lattelaurel sent: Leonard + safety

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warning: abuse mentioned/implied

He’s had to create his own. Build up walls, build up muscle, build up a ten-foot fence to keep the monsters at bay. 

 

Safety is a memory, a ghost of the year’s first snowfall when you look back on it from the hottest day of summer. It’s so boiling hot that you don’t think the snow will  _ever_  fall again. You don’t see how it could.

 

Heat is all he knows, and all he wants is ice. 

 

He stands in between his father and his sister and he doesn’t think he’s ever going to feel safe again. 

 

But  _she_  is, and that’s the only thing that matters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/163916446639/leonard-safety)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> shesthemuscle sent: Ray + Falling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warning: falling (literally, from the sky)

There’s something freeing about falling. Letting go, and letting gravity have its way with you. Giving up that control, closing your eyes against the rush of the wind, and plummeting down to earth.

 

There’s nothing you can do. Gravity will always win, in the end, and there’s no use fighting it. Ray knows he already cheats gravity way too much and one day, it’s going to win. 

 

That doesn’t mean he’ll stop fighting it, it just means that every step he takes brings him closer to the end. 

 

Falling for people is mostly the same. There’s nothing he can do to stop it, to stop the feelings from rushing up as quickly as the hard ground, nothing he can do to stop from hitting the pavement with a crash. So, why fight it? 

 

There’s too much control in it, though, for it to be completely freeing. Not in a “I can’t control myself around you!” kind of way, nothing like that. It’s more, love isn’t impartial the way gravity is. 

 

Gravity will always drag you down. With people, though, you never know what they want. 

 

You never know if they’re plummeting down right along with you, or if they’re the ground waiting for you to break upon it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/163918065054/ray-falling)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> shesthemuscle sent: Ray + Memory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warning: canonical character deaths implied

Forgetting would be nice. Forgetting  _anything_. 

 

Forgetting the way Anna looked, first thing in the morning, hair all tousled and eyes warm and sleepy. 

 

Forgetting the way Felicity touched him, soft and insistent, all at once. 

 

Forgetting Kendra’s smile, the press of her lips, the sound of her laugh. 

 

Forgetting Leonard’s smirk, the drawl behind his words, the intensity of his gaze.

 

Ray would rather root around in his brain for foggy memories, for the ghosts of the people he’s loved and lost. Some of them  _are_ ghosts, after all. 

 

But his memory is perfect, an iron trap, locking good and bad up tight together. He can see it all clearly like it’s in front of him, like it’s happening to him right now. 

 

Except it’s not, they’re gone, and he’s alone with nothing but his memories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/163918437074/ray-memory)


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> shesthemuscle sent: Jax + Music

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no warnings for this chapter

He lets Gideon choose the music sometimes, when he’s working on the engine. He’s always mildly surprised at her choices. He knows she chooses a lot of it because she knows what he likes and what he listens to when he picks the music. 

 

Still, there are times when she’ll pick things that are wildly outside his normal selection. He doesn’t protest right away, usually, just lets it wash over him. After a little while, he’ll find himself tapping his foot to the beat, a smile on his face. 

 

She especially knows what he needs when he’s upset, or annoyed, or just needs to get out of his own head (or away from Gray inside his head) for a bit. Even if he doesn’t say anything, she knows. 

 

It’s a little weird, how well she knows and understands him, and the rest of the team. But, then again, he’s used to having someone in his head. It’s no weirder than that. 

 

Well, maybe a little.

 

But he doesn’t let it get to him as he dances through the engine room, mimicking banging drums and strumming air guitars to the heavy metal that Gideon decided he needed that day. 

 

For a while, he’s not the mechanic on a futuristic time ship, or a superhero psychically linked to another person, he’s just Jax. He’s just a 21 year old, surrounded by metal and chrome, moving to the beat. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/163919161549/jax-music)


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> shesthemuscle sent: Amaya + Helpless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

She is not. She will never be. She trains without her amulet, because she knows it’s an asset, an ally, but it is not her strength and it will never be. 

 

Her strength comes from within, not from without, and she has to be strong to harness the ashe anyway, so it doesn’t overwhelm her. She doesn’t want to control the animals, but she doesn’t want to let them control her, either. 

 

It’s a give and take, a delicate balance, a partnership. But without her amulet, she’s just a person. 

 

So she trains, and trains, and trains, because she will  _not_  give an inch, she will  _not_  let anyone make her feel small. Or broken. Or helpless. Not ever. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/163920602664/amaya-helpless)


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous sent: Stein + Loss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: canonical character death, grief, mourning

Ronald’s funeral isn’t Jewish, because Ronald wasn’t Jewish, but Martin says a Burial Kaddish for him anyway, muttered under his breath at the cemetery. He never was a practicing Rabbi, but some things you just don’t forget.

 

He says the Mourner’s Kaddish every Shabbat for a while, with Clarissa at his side. It doesn’t meet the minyan requirement of ten adults, but he was a reform Rabbi anyway. The rules are a little more wobbly, and he likes it better that way. (Rules are for other people, he thinks sometimes). 

 

He’d rather say the Kaddish than not. And it’s hard for someone who keeps catching fire and passing out to attend a full Shabbat service. Even reform services are a bit too long to be safe. 

 

It’s comforting, ritual. Ronald wasn’t Jewish, but Martin still officiated his wedding, and he feels that mourning Ronald with a Jewish tradition is appropriate. 

 

Technically, there’s nothing that requires one to say the Mourner’s Kaddish for this long for someone who isn’t related to you, but their situation was a strange one, too. He doesn’t feel obligated, he  _wants to_.

 

Ronald was a part of him, literally, and every day without him gets harder and harder. 

 

Martin doesn’t stop saying the Mourner’s Kaddish weekly until after the first time he merges with Jefferson. He doesn’t stop mourning, he’ll never stop mourning Ronald. But he feels the loss less sharply, now. 

 

He lights the Yahrzeit candle for Ronald, every year. Then the Mourner’s Kaddish passes his lips again, with the Legends grouped around him, some following along, some staying silent. Not quite a minyan, but close enough. 

 

It’s family, though, and that’s the important thing, really. Family, ritual, love. They all bring comfort. They all ease his grief, a little more each time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/163932005969/stein-loss)


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous sent: Nate + Rebirth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warning: blood mention

He thinks it’s a new life, a new chance, a new body. 

 

He thinks it’s the end of worry, the end of constantly checking in with himself, of having to listen to his body, of having to  _stop_.

 

It’s not.

 

In steel, he’s invulnerable. (Almost.) (Close enough.) In skin, he’s the same as he’s ever been. 

 

He bleeds and he bleeds and he doesn’t stop until he turns to steel. When he turns back, his skin is fresh and new and  _whole_.

 

He thinks it’s going to save him. And it does. 

 

But his blood still flows, fast and free, same as ever. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164001904339/nate-rebirth)


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> shesthemuscle sent: Mick + Choice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

They don’t leave him much of a choice. Belittling him, ignoring him, laughing at him, and that’s only what they do to his face. 

 

They treat him like a dog, like a pet, and Snart’s right, Snart’s always right. 

 

So it wasn’t really a choice, choosing Snart. Choosing the…Legion. Except he didn’t really choose the  _Legion_ , he chose Snart. 

 

He tries to convince himself of that in the days to come. 

 

But in the end, all that matters is that he should have chosen the Legends–would have chosen the Legends, if only they’d chosen him first. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164002251669/mick-choice)


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> shesthemuscle sent: Leonard + Attentiveness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warning: abuse mentioned/implied (lewis snart's a+ parenting)

He knows the force of his gaze, but he also knows how to temper it, to watch without drawing attention to himself. The same way he can make people  _notice_  when he enters a room, or skulk along the edges so nobody notices, he can adjust his stare to be subtle. Invisible. 

 

He learned to be attentive, to watch while half-hidden, when he was younger. Any sign that his father was going to fly into a rage, and he’d grab Lisa and run. “Going to the park!” he’d call, even if it was 9 pm on a school night. Better to be out of the house now and tired later than trapped with a drunk, violent, asshole of a father. 

 

He found that his attentiveness, his ability to absorb information, was handy when he started planning his own jobs. He could map a place out in his head in seconds, security cameras and blind spots included. 

 

It was handy on the Waverider, learning the patterns and habits of his teammates, seeking out their strengths and weaknesses and quirks. Not that anybody asked his opinion. 

 

When he comes back from the dead (because he will, he has to, Legends never die), he realizes that just absorbing information isn’t enough, that he has to  _do_  something with it. He has to talk to his teammates about their interests, their lives, their loves and losses and heartbreaks and joys. 

 

He knows most of it already, but everyone loves a captivated audience. 

 

Leonard is nothing if not attentive. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164003235444/leonard-attentiveness)


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous sent: Rip + Angels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter content warning: canonical character death mention, canonical child death mention

It’s hard to believe in anything like angels when you’re a poor orphan boy begging on the streets of London. The smog in the air and the cold of the cobblestones seep into your bones, and nothing feels real after a while. 

 

It’s hard to believe in anything like angels against the stark sterility of technology, new and fresh and smelling like nothing he’s ever smelled before. Clean and dead and empty all at once. 

 

He gets used to it, and he goes into the depths of space, the depths of time, and finds nothing but emptiness. No angels here, nothing but his thoughts and his AI. 

 

Miranda, though. In her, he thinks he finds heaven, and to his eyes she glows, like angels must. Jonas, too–his son he named after someone who was never an angel but he loved anyway–Jonas glowed, bright and beautiful, the best thing Rip ever created. 

 

When he loses her, loses them, though, he loses heaven, and any hope of angels along with it. Now there’s nothing but space, stark and cold against the seven warm bodies on his ship. Without them, he thinks he might float away into the black.

 

Maybe if he goes far enough he’ll find them. The angels. His wife and son. What’s the difference? They’re out of his reach, regardless. Untouchable, unattainable, gone. 

 

Who needs angels, anyway? Technology is his higher power, Gideon is as close to an angel as he needs, right? 

 

And she can’t leave him if he leaves her first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164004072084/rip-angels)


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> shesthemuscle sent: Rip + Brilliance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

They say they see it in him, the Time Masters, when they pluck him off the streets. They say he has  _potential_. 

 

He believes them, believes them up until he stands in front of them with Vandal Savage in cuffs, and they betray him.

 

Well, again. To his face. 

 

If he was truly brilliant, he thinks, locked in that clear cage, he would have seen it coming. He would have  _known_. He would have killed Savage and dragged his cold, dead body to the Time Masters instead. 

 

Trust won out, over everything else. Despite everything, he trusted them to do the right thing. 

 

But people are flawed, and brilliance doesn’t mean foresight, or kindness, or anything else that could have saved his family.

 

No matter how brilliant he is, no matter how brilliant they told him, over and over again, that he was, that he  _is_ , he still can’t save his family. So, really, what good is brilliance when you still lose in the end?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164004690679/rip-brilliance)


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ankahikoibaat sent: and i still want to ask for more pain why am i doing this to myself. ray + selfcare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

Ray doesn’t know how to take care of himself. He pushes and pushes and pushes until he crashes, hard and painfully. As soon as he picks himself up from that, he pushes again. 

 

He doesn’t stop, doesn’t listen to his body when it screams at him, doesn’t do anything but lose himself in his work, over and over again. 

 

Something has to give, people say. That something isn’t going to be Ray.

 

His body can’t keep up with his mind, and nothing frustrates him more than having to stop to sleep, or eat. He longs to be an android, free from this bodily prison that forces him to take breaks (not that he actually takes them), that forces him to  _stop_. 

 

It takes an outside source, and an unexpected one at that, for him to start looking at things differently. 

 

“You’re going to kill yourself if you keep that up,” Snart drawls from the doorway of the lab. Ray ignores him.

 

“You haven’t eaten in two days, you’re gonna pass out,” Snart drawls, leaning against the wall of the lab, next to the door. Ray ignores him.

 

“When was the last time you slept?” Snart drawls, leaning over the table in the lab, glancing at Ray’s work. Ray ignores him. 

 

“You know,” Snart drawls, from the bench next to him, “your work is getting shoddy.” 

 

Ray glances up. 

 

“Maybe if you took care of yourself,” Snart suggests, “you wouldn’t spend so much time correcting mistakes you made because you were too exhausted to do it right the first time.”

 

“Maybe,” Snart says, “if you took care of yourself, you’d actually get more done.”

 

Ray considers that, through the haze of fatigue and long-ignored hunger. 

 

“Get up,” Leonard orders. “You’re gonna eat, sleep, and shower, in that order, and then I will let you keep working.”

 

Ray gets up, his body reacting automatically to the commanding tone. 

 

He eats. He sleeps. He showers. He goes back to work.

 

His head is clear, he fixes his mistakes, he works through a problem he’d been struggling with. His work  _is_  better.

 

Of course, then he starts pushing again. Gotta keep going while it’s going well, right?

 

Leonard shows up before he gets in too deep, and pulls him out. 

 

And they continue in this never-ending cycle, until Leonard leaves. Dies. Gets himself blown up. 

 

Then there’s nobody to pull Ray out, to remind him to take care of himself, and he loses himself again, to the work, to the loneliness. 

 

He forgets, and he tries to forget, because remembering hurts. Working pushes that all away and, really, that’s better. 

 

If he pushes himself too hard, if he forgets to take care of himself, at least he doesn’t have to remember all he’s lost. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164005547979/and-i-still-want-to-ask-for-more-pain-why-am-i)


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sophiacfandom sent: I feel there is not quite enough Mick in your 'legends + thing' shorts. So. Mick + Gideon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: ableism

She’s the only one who doesn’t talk down to him. 

 

Ever.

 

He can ask her anything, in private, locked in his room, and she won’t judge, won’t pity him, won’t  _laugh_. 

 

He forgets words. They’re there–really, they are. It’s just that they’re slightly out of reach, on the tip of his tongue. He knows he knows them, but they’re just…taunting him. Mocking him. 

 

“What’s the…the thing where like, it’s not really there, you’re making it up, uh, imagining it, but it’s not–”

 

“A figment, Mr. Rory?”

 

“Yeah, that.”

 

And on it goes. 

 

Gideon doesn’t mock him. Not like the words do. Not like the  _team_  does. 

 

And it helps. The words come back quicker, smoother, as she talks him through it. Funny, that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164006491439/i-feel-there-is-not-quite-enough-mick-in-your)


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous sent: Mick + family?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: burning, canonical character death mention

It’s not something he thinks he wants, not something he thinks is for him.

 

His own family died at his hands, and he doesn’t think he deserves much after that. 

 

If you burn your parents alive, do you deserve anything good afterwards? 

 

Leonard and Lisa become something close, but they’re just as broken as he is, just as screwed up and hard and bitter. Leonard more so than Lisa, because he holds her apart from their world as much as he possibly can, but things still slip through the cracks.

 

Their parents betrayed them, just as Mick betrayed his parents. It’s not quite the same thing, but it’s close enough for Mick to accept that maybe he can have  _something_ , as long as it’s still broken and burning and messy.

 

The Legends aren’t family. Not at first. Not for a long while. Not until it all goes to shit. 

 

Not until Mick burns it all down, again. Until he betrays them, and realizes that he did it again. 

 

But this time, maybe, he can fix it.

 

And he does.

 

He  _fixes_ it.

 

Because the team? They’re his family. He’s flawed and broken and messy, but so are they. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164007985124/mick-family)


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> damnstevens sent: Rip + Heartache

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter content: suicide ideation

At first, he doesn’t think it will ever end. His heart shatters, and he’s alone. 

 

He puts together a team to calm the constant, screaming agony in his brain. It doesn’t help. He’s not alone, but he can’t bear to let anyone in either, so he might as well be. 

 

He’s thwarted at every turn, with every plan, at every attempt. Every time, he feels pieces of his shattered heart die, turn gray, wither. 

 

When they catch Savage, he only feels numb. On the outside, he crows and celebrates with the team. Inside, it’s only quiet, buzzing. 

 

When the Time Masters betray him, when they tell him everything, when they show him the future, he wants to laugh. Of course, because why would he ever  _win_? Why would anything ever go his way? 

 

When he does win, when they do win, he doesn’t tell the team that he almost gave up, that he almost flew the Waverider into the sun, because this is supposed to be a celebration.

 

But it lingers, keeps coming back around, “He’s dead. You didn’t get them back but he’s dead, they’re dead, they’re ruined, you’re free.”

 

Free?

 

Free.

 

He takes a deep breath, and one of the withered pieces comes back to life. 

 

He laughs, for real, and another dead piece is revived.

 

His team surrounds him, pokes and prods at him, annoys him to hell and back, but each one of them revives another piece, and another. 

 

It’s not easy, and it’s not clean, and there’s a lot of duct tape required, but they help put his heart back together, without even knowing it.

 

And maybe one day his heart will be whole again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164009701464/rip-heartache)


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> damnstevens sent: Leonard + Grief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no content warnings except grief, but not for death necessarily

He doesn’t grieve for what he’s lost. His mother leaving, Lisa’s mother leaving, that’s on them. He has to focus on what’s ahead, on protecting his sister. 

 

On protecting himself. 

 

Lisa comes first, always. There’s no time to waste, no energy to spare on grieving for people he never should have relied on in the first place. He can only rely on himself. 

 

Of course he can rely on Lisa, too, but he’d never put that on her. He pries every bit of weight from her shoulders that he can, and takes it on himself. 

 

His back hurts with the weight of it, but he doesn’t grieve for what he lost, or what could have been. 

 

He just has to keep moving forward, keep pushing on, keep shouldering the weight of the world. Of his sister’s world.

 

Grief is a luxury, and Leonard doesn’t even care to steal it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164010295769/leonard-grief)


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> damnstevens sent: Mick + Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no content warnings

He hears people talk about it and he sees it in movies and magazines and plastered all over every screen, everywhere. He wonders at the idea of people giving up everything for it, the things they do, the way they act.

 

He can’t imagine it. 

 

_Romance_.

 

What’s the big deal?

 

Even Snart falls into it at times; mooning over big brown eyes, over lanky nerdy boys with hearts of gold. Snart, usually so rational and clear-headed, goes gaga over carefully styled hair, sweet smiles, and bad jokes. 

 

It doesn’t make any sense.

 

Yeah, okay, there are people Mick likes better than other people, that part he gets. But the swooning and the heart eyes and the  _obsession_ , none of that rings true. 

 

It’s not until he stumbles upon Nate in the library one day that he figures it out. Nate is asking Gideon about the concept of something called  _aromanticism_ , and asking how he might possibly date someone who is aromantic.

 

Mick listens to Gideon explain it, and things click slowly into place. No romantic attraction? No interest in romantic relationships? 

 

Halfway through Gideon explaining the concept of queerplatonic partners, he steps into the room, and Nate frantically tries to silence Gideon. 

 

“Is that about me?” Mick asks, staring Nate down.

 

Nate swallows. “Maybe? Is it? I–I won’t, like, put words in your mouth, but you haven’t, like, responded in  _any_  way to my flirting, not even in a negative way, and I don’t really know what to do with that so I thought, maybe–”

 

“Yeah,” Mick grunts, cutting Nate off. “Sounds right.” And it does, it fits. 

 

It fits like a glove, and Mick likes the feeling that comes along with having a word, now, to help him figure out and navigate relationships.

 

And that whole queerplatonic thing, that sounds nice. There are certainly some people he likes better than most others. 

 

Yeah, Mick guesses that love is kind of okay, as long as it’s not that whole romantic gushy stuff. Friendship love, though, that feels…right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164011260969/mick-love)


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> damnstevens sent: Ray + Cartoons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

When Ray was young, Saturday morning cartoons felt like home. He would wake up before Sydney, running downstairs past the room where his parents slept, and curl up a foot or so away from the TV, on the rug. 

 

He’d keep the sound down low, to not wake anyone and get in trouble, and he’d sit, rapt, watching the cartoons. 

 

Ray would flip-flop between Ewoks and Muppets, leaning forward to click the channels. He’d watch Droids, Ghostbusters, Smurfs, anything with a little bit of weirdness and a little bit of magic. 

 

Not magic like spells or wizards or anything, just something otherworldly, something odd, something bright and hopeful and  _different_. 

 

It made him feel like he wasn’t wrong, like this is how people could be and they didn’t have to be mocked for it, didn’t have to be shuffled off to the side because they were  _different_  and  _hard to deal with_  and  _can you look me in the eyes when you speak to me, Raymond_ , and  _why can’t you just sit still for two seconds, please_. 

 

For a few hours, early on quiet Saturday mornings, he could feel like everything was going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164012769214/ray-cartoons)


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> damnstevens sent: Nate + Happiness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

He thinks he’s happy. Okay, sure, he’s been sheltered and isolated, stuck inside while other people played outside and got cuts and bruises and bled and  _stopped bleeding_. 

 

But he’s happy, really, inside with his books, where he can have an adventure without leaving his office. 

 

Or, at least he thinks he is, until he tastes freedom. Until his heart plummets into his stomach during his first time jump. 

 

The thrill, the  _exhilaration_ , the chemicals spark in his brain and he can’t. Stop. Smiling. 

 

It’s even more clear, the contrast, the fact that he wasn’t  _really_ happy, when the team accepts him. When he gets his powers, when Ray makes him a suit, when the team starts treating him as part of the family.

 

He didn’t  _understand_  happiness, not really. Not until now. Now he thinks he might burst with the whole of it, and he can’t imagine how he ever could have thought that how he felt before was happiness. 

 

It was all he’d ever known, all he’d ever thought he could have. 

 

He still bleeds, wrapped in skin, and doesn’t stop until his flesh shifts to steel. The scent of metal and the scent of blood are almost indistinguishable, and they stick in his nose, but it’s a small price to pay for happiness.

 

He is disabled AND he is a superhero AND he is happy. 

 

Never been happier, really. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164036591709/nate-happiness)


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> damnstevens sent: Sara + Pain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: canonical character death, grief

Breathe in.

 

Breathe out.

 

Let it go.

 

Pain is fleeting, and if you can breathe through it, you can weather anything. That’s what Ra’s taught her. Him first, and then Nyssa.

 

“Breathe, beloved,” Nyssa’s voice sounds in her ear, soft and sweet, in opposition to the cold, harsh front Sara’s lover presents. 

 

Sara breathes, and the pain flows away like the dregs of last night’s wine seeps away into the soil where she pours it. 

 

She can’t breathe through the pain of losing Laurel, though, no matter how hard she tries. 

 

She tries. God, she  _tries_. 

 

Deep, gasping breaths. Short, sharp, shallow breaths. In through her nose, out through her mouth. In and out through her nose. In through her mouth and out in a scream. The pain sticks, like a burr to her clothes, and she can’t pry it out. 

 

It sticks, and it settles down deep in her chest, a cat of grief, curling up in a ball and refusing to get up. No matter how much she shoves at it, it won’t move. It just sticks its claws in deeper.

 

She breathes and she breathes, but the pain remains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164041097869/sara-pain)


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> damnstevens sent: Amaya + Legacy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

It sticks in her mind. Destiny. Legacy.

 

She lies awake next to Nate and turns it over in her head. Is she making the right choice? Should she try to change it? What is she leaving behind, after she’s gone?

 

If she has the means to change it all, to change the pain and suffering of her descendant, her  _granddaughter–_ and how strange it is, to be a grandmother before she ever becomes a mother in the first place–shouldn’t she…

 

Do.

 

Something?

 

Anything.

 

What does that make her, her impact on the world, if she does nothing?

 

But if she changes everything, then what does  _that_  make her?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164045893909/amaya-legacy)


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> damnstevens sent: Thea + Clothes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

She’s confused.

 

She’s changed so much, been flung back and forth through emotions and catastrophes, and she doesn’t know who she is anymore.

 

Nothing feels right, nothing hangs right.

 

She wants to curl back up in schoolgirl skirts, curl up on the couch next to her mother.

 

She wants to wear something tight and revealing, to keep it all inside, and make sure that people are looking at her, but only at the surface, so they don’t know how broken she is.

 

She wants to wear something loose and comfortable, to spar–not with her father, never again with him. Just to flip and kick and spin, the fabric flowing around her legs, a crop-top keeping her movements free and unhindered. 

 

She wants the suits, still cute and flirty, but professional, so people look at her like an adult, like someone who is capable and smart and commands respect. 

 

And she wants the  _suit_. Red, fitted, bold. An echo of Roy, an echo of Ollie, an echo of Malcolm. It never really felt like hers, never really felt like her.

 

She wants it all, and she wants none of it. None of them are her, not anymore, and she sheds them like second skins. She says goodbye to each iteration of herself as she sloughs them off.

 

So what’s left when all of them are gone?

 

Well, won’t that be wonderful to discover?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164046364424/thea-clothes)


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ankahikoibaat sent: Ray & Rip + loss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

Neither of them hide their loss, really. The team knows about Anna, knows about Miranda. 

 

At the same time, though, everything is hidden. Everything that doesn’t have to be out in the open, isn’t. 

 

Ray smiles wide, like the brilliance of it is going to burn away the sorrow that he shoves down with vigor and violence. 

 

Rip paces. Anxiety over the mission, annoyance at his team, they’re only a cover for his emotions bubbling up, threatening to boil over, threatening to make him scream, make him cry, make him  _give in_. 

 

The both of them cope by pouring themselves into work, into building and planning and  _fixing_. 

 

Loss lingers around them like the early morning mist lingers in the air, like all it needs is the sun to burst through the clouds and warm up the earth. 

 

But it comes back the next morning, all the same. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164047156579/ray-rip-loss)


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ankahikoibaat sent: Kendra + coffee ("I was a barista")

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

It’s not about the coffee.

 

That’s just what she latches on to, her last tenuous hold on a “normal life.”

 

She didn’t even really  _like_  it. Being a barista.  She prefers tea, over coffee. Spicy chai, rich black, bitter green. So many varieties. Coffee all tastes the same to her, and she chokes it with milk and honey to get it down.

 

But once  _he_  came back–Carter, Prince Khufu, whatever–there was no more normalcy. She knows it’s not his fault, but he carries the scent of death on his wings, and she doesn’t  _want this_. 

 

She doesn’t want it, she doesn’t, she really really doesn’t, she wants light and love and laughter and beauty. She wanted Cisco, she wanted Ray, she wanted kindness and softness and  _warmth_.

 

Carter tastes like coffee in her mouth, and she tries to sweeten him up with milk and honey, and it works. Somewhat. If she can mask the taste, if she can dredge up the past enough, maybe she can be happy with him.

 

Maybe she can turn him into tea–varied and vibrant and, yes, still bitter, but only if you steep it too long. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164047747514/kendra-coffee-i-was-a-barista)


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous sent: Kendra + dancing?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

She wakes with music in her head sometimes. Snippets, half-remembered, and she steps perfectly to the beat, spinning around her room with an invisible partner.

 

Sometimes it’s Carter, sometimes it’s someone else. Her partners are always half-shrouded, half-forgotten; a faded photograph. 

 

Still, the music moves through her, and her body responds with the memory of muscles long since retrained to other ways of movements. Force over grace, in this body, with these muscles. Grace, still, yes, but strength is the key, for this life. 

 

But her body doesn’t forget, won’t forget her past lives. They bleed through in stages, in movements, in forgotten languages and lost prayers. And dance. 

 

The ritual dances of her first life, to the life she was a ballerina, to the life she was a burlesque dancer, to the life where she was a tap dancer, a swing dancer, to the life where she just let her body go, let her body do what it would. They flow out of her in waves, in stages. 

 

They flow out of her in the middle of battle, her body ducking and twirling and spinning and it’s not dance, really, not anymore, but her muscles remember. Her body remembers. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164072164549/kendra-dancing)


	34. Chapter 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous sent: Amaya + theatre?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

It’s not that she doesn’t value entertainment, as a concept. Movies are fine, books are even better (especially non-fiction), and she guesses that theatre must be alright too. 

 

Nate and Ray start a round of showtunes over team drinks one night, on the bridge, and Amaya watches with amusement, and no desire to learn the songs to sing along. 

 

Really, entertainment is great. It keeps Ray quiet, when he’s babbling too much, and the team just turns on Star Wars to shut him up. It keeps Nate quiet, too, with Indiana Jones. 

 

Amaya watches with them, especially watches the ones Nate loves, because she likes it when he’s happy, but she just…doesn’t see the appeal, really.

 

They stop in various time periods and the team talks about seeing original casts and finding plays that were lost to time, and she finds that she just really doesn’t  _care_.

 

It’s not useful, not to her at least. And it’s great that people find comfort in it, find meaning and knowledge and joy. But she has no interest, and she’s fine with it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164075266609/amaya-theatre)


	35. Chapter 35

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous sent: Ray + stimming?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

He designs his suit to fit him perfectly, to snap into place and keep him enclosed. It clicks in, tight around him, and he feels cocooned in it. The pressure soothes him, keeps him feeling safe, even if the world is falling to pieces around him. 

 

(When he’s stuck in the past and can’t wear his ATOM suit regularly, a tweed three-piece suit does well enough, a vest tight across his chest.)

 

Anxiety means wringing his hands, and it helps clear his head, the same way moving his hands while he talks focuses his thoughts, keeps things flowing nicely.

 

A bouncing foot, his leg jiggling up and down, his fingers tapping at whatever surface he can find, it keeps him going, keeps him as clear as he can be, to focus on what he needs to focus on. 

 

He never stops moving, never stops fiddling, never stops tapping or gesturing, never stops loving that tight, comforting pressure. 

 

It’s nice, on the Waverider, that usually the team doesn’t try to stop him, doesn’t ask him to stop moving. They get it, and he appreciates it. Another reason the Waverider feels more like home than anywhere else he’s ever lived. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164086091314/ray-stimming)


	36. Chapter 36

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lattelaurel sent: if you're still doing these: Leonard + sadness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

It wraps around him like a shawl, like a shroud, and he hates it. He wants to be cold, wants to be hard, wants to be sharp. Like ice. Like diamonds. 

 

But the reason he wants to be ice is the same reason he can never be. Lisa.

 

He aches for her. For her lost childhood, for her lost potential, for the fact that she could be so much more, and he wants so much more for her, but this is all he can give. 

 

He’s given her everything he has and it’s still not enough, it will never be enough, but he’ll keep trying. He’ll keep fighting, keep throwing his body against the wall and hope it breaks. 

 

He hopes it breaks before he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164116838254/if-youre-still-doing-these-leonard-sadness)


	37. Chapter 37

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bottomraypalmer sent: ray + romance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

“Go big or go home,” is his motto. In regards to most things, but especially to romance. He’s not one to do things by half measures. He’s either all in, or not interested. 

 

It gets to be a bit…too much for some people. Overwhelming. To the point where, when he gets together with Kendra, he’s figured out how to tone it down a bit. She doesn’t want big gestures, she tells him, so he bites his lip and doesn’t fill her room with flowers. 

 

Felicity had appreciated…some of it. The time he bought out the entire fancy restaurant in Central City, not so much. She, at least, appreciated the flowers. And the chocolates, especially the chocolates. 

 

Anna had loved all of it, and responded with gestures that were just as grand, and Ray loved it. Loved her. 

 

Really, what Ray needs is someone with just as much flair, just as much love for over-the-top gestures, who takes just as much joy in dramatic expressions of affection. 

 

Not that he’d ever ask for it, not that he’d even think to ask for it. But it’s what he needs, all the same. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164117687864/ray-romance)


	38. Chapter 38

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bottomraypalmer sent: nate + solitude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

He spends most of his early life in it. Homeschooled, even though both his parents still worked, kept inside from kids and sticks and pavement and sports. The only things he’s at risk for are papercuts and loneliness.

 

Undergrad is less isolated, but he doesn’t know how to talk to people, and his lack of tact doesn’t make him many friends. Books are more interesting, anyway, and they won’t make fun of him for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. 

 

Other people are cruel, he thinks, and sinks deeper into his books. Knowledge more than makes up for a life of solitude, right?

 

But, the Legends. When he finds them, when they let him in, he finds they’re just as disastrous as he is. Just as messy, and tactless, and  _lonely_. 

 

The ship is never quiet, Nate is never alone, he’s long since given up on privacy, and he’s never felt so understood. He doesn’t miss the silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164118888174/nate-solitude)


	39. Chapter 39

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous sent: Lisa Snart + ice skating?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: physical abuse, lewis snart's a+ parenting

She always thought it was beautiful, gliding across the frozen surface on blades. Sharp, deadly, elegant. 

 

She would beg her father to take her,  _just once, daddy, please please please, oh please_? He never did.

 

When she turns thirteen, Lenny, fresh from prison, gets together enough money to take her. Ice skating isn’t cheap, not in the city, where the streets that freeze get covered in rock salt and sand and you’d just get hit by a car anyway, sliding across the ice in your sneakers. 

 

You have to go to a  _club_. A big, echoing dome, crisp and cold like early November, bad pop music playing over the tinny speakers. 

 

Lisa pulls the laces tight on the crisp white skates, the thick material fighting her grip. Lenny smiles, rare for him, and leans forward to pull them closed all the way. He’s already done up his gray-and-black hockey-type skates. He’d offered that type to Lisa, citing speed and force.

 

She wanted grace, instead, and picked the figure skates. 

 

They’re both tentative, stepping onto the ice, ankles too enclosed in skates to wobble, but unsteady nonetheless. It takes a bit of trial and error, but they’re both graceful, both physical, and soon they’re gliding around the rink, laughing. 

 

Even after the black eye their father gives Lenny later, for  _wasting time and money on pointless bullshit,_  he still tells her it was worth it, to see her laugh. 

 

It was worth it, Lenny tells her, to make her happy. And Lisa’s the luckiest little sister in the world. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164121418304/lisa-snart-ice-skating)


	40. Chapter 40

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous sent: Snart + jealousy, please?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

“This ship isn’t a prison, it’s a torture chamber,” he’d said, not because he hates it on the Waverider, not because he can’t stand Raymond, or Kendra.

 

He can’t stand someone else taking what he wants. 

 

And effortlessly, too. 

 

Leonard  _smiled_  at Raymond, and Raymond had looked at him with wonder in his eyes, and then Kendra, with her sweet smile and flowing hair and cute outfits swooped in and just swept Raymond up in her wings. 

 

Leonard is used to getting what he wants. And what he wants, is Raymond. 

 

So, yeah, he’s  _jealous_.

 

She’s  _gorgeous_  and  _teasing_  without being  _rude_  and she’s  _pleasant_  and  _badass_  and Leonard  _really_  wants to hate her. She’s everything Leonard isn’t–except badass, he’s that, too–and the worst part of it is that she doesn’t even know what she’s got.

 

Leonard watches, observes, because that’s what he does, and when they get back from their two years away, their two years that was only hours, and a frozen hand, for Leonard, she doesn’t even seem to understand him. 

 

Doesn’t seem to understand that the problem Raymond has isn’t with being back, it’s with her complete attitude 180. They snip at each other in the hallways, on the bridge, before settling back into domestic bliss, or whatever, and Leonard  _seethes_. 

 

Leonard is emotionally constipated, a complete disaster, but all he wants is to dote on that obnoxious, annoying, oversized puppy of a nerd, and he  _can’t_ , because  _she_  got to him first, and he’s  _really. Fucking. Jealous._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/164125641059/snart-jealousy-please)


	41. Chapter 41

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> skelenate asked:  
> Amaya + funeral

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content note: death mention

If they had one for Rex, she didn’t know about it. Or, at least she didn’t go to it. Her rage was clouding her judgement, all other thoughts. 

 

God, she left his body in the middle of the JSA. Did they even know what happened? There were cameras, but was anyone watching them? Would anyone know?

 

She just disappeared, left them, left  _Rex_. For what? Justice? 

 

She missed his  _funeral_. She missed it, missed  _him_. And when she gets her justice, she’s not even sure it was worth it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://snartbaiting.tumblr.com/post/165920735584/amaya-funeral)


	42. Chapter 42

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous sent: Ray Palmer and nervous tics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

When he was growing up, authority figures would always put a hand over his wringing ones, “Stop that,” “It’s making me nervous,” keep your feelings inside, don’t let them show, don’t let them know. 

 

“Stop wiggling your knee, Raymond,” “Stop shaking your hands, Raymond,” “Stop moving, why are you always moving, can’t you sit still?” 

 

He can’t, he  _can’t_ , because if he does, he has to find a quiet place later to  _move_  and it’s worse, it’s worse, but they don’t understand that, so they keep telling him to  **stop**. 

 

So it’s nice that the Legends don’t tell him to stop, they let him wring his hands and stim and jiggle his knee and he’s always, always moving and they  _let him_. They let him move with nervous energy, with excited energy, with just  _energy_ , and he’s never felt so at home before. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://jewishlorca.tumblr.com/post/166956073029/ray-palmer-and-nervous-tics)


	43. Chapter 43

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous sent: Leonard Snart and animals/pets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

He never had one growing up, not with  _his_  father, not with  _Lewis_. Lewis hated cats, and dogs hated Lewis, and Leonard was fine with all of that. 

 

Anyway, Leonard had enough small, helpless beings to take care of with Lisa. He didn’t need another mouth to feed, another small, mewling thing for Lewis to ignore and Leonard to have to scrounge up food for another meal on his teenaged-own self. So, no pets. 

 

But Mick, Mick attracted pets, and they followed him around like he was their mother hen and they were baby chicks. Cats and dogs and birds and mice and rats, and Leonard later got used to fluff underfoot and purring cats taking over his pillow at night and dogs licking his face as soon as he walked in the door of whatever safe house they were staying in that week. 

 

Leonard likes the cats the best, though–they leave him alone for the most part, but they’re always there if he wants something soft against his cheek, a space heater curled up at his side on a cold night, a soft purr to calm him after a fight with Lewis. Yeah, cats are good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://jewishlorca.tumblr.com/post/166969438944/leonard-snart-and-animalspets)


	44. Chapter 44

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous sent: Ray Palmer and morning routines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

It’s not unusual to walk into the lab early in the morning and see Ray fast asleep with his face in his work. He’ll sit up with bits of metal sticking to his face, and indents where his cheek was resting against other, heavier, bits of tech. He’ll laugh it off, pad off to the kitchen for coffee before he returns to his room to shower and brush his teeth and change into fresh clothes. 

 

If Ray does make it to his actual bed at night, his morning consists of that in the opposite order–shower, teeth, clothes first, then coffee, then straight back to the lab. 

 

If they’re on a mission, sometimes steps get skipped, and sometimes they go in different orders, but there’s always coffee, always the lab, sometimes a bed. 


	45. Chapter 45

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked: Zari and stars?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

Stars have been ever-present in her life–in symbols, in the art her family hid away and brought out in secret, in the dark. A guiding light, not in the city, not covered by the smog and the threat of curfew, but in her heart. 

 

She’s seen stars in the countryside, in the place she was supposed to find her family, where they were supposed to make their jannah. She’s seen stars reflecting in the dark screens of her sleeping tech, stars in the eyes of her new friends when they look her at her, stars in the sky in the woods as she chased after a child and an alien. 

 

She’s seen stars from the air, stars from the windows of this ship, this time ship she doesn’t want to admit she already wants to call home. 

 

She sees stars when her amulet–no, her  _totem_ –sparks, when it alights, when it streams out and connects to the one Amaya wears, she sees the stars and she wants to call it home. 

 

So she does. 

 

She lives among the stars and she lives with people who are made of starlight, and she calls it home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://jewishlorca.tumblr.com/post/167393035584/zari-and-stars)


	46. Chapter 46

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jewishraypalmer sent: happy night/day 1!!!! how about.... rory regan + candles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dctv chanukkah event prompt

He never thought he’d find someone to light the hanukiah with who knew about his other life. He never thought he’d find another Jewish superhero. 

 

Felicity may not think she is one, but she  _is_ , Rory knows. He knows that the only reason team Arrow stays together is because she keeps them together. 

 

So they light the candles together, the first night of Chanukkah, in the Arrow cave, and Rory almost wants to cry. His hood pulled down, he says the blessings in unison with his friend, with his fellow  _superhero_ , and he’s never been happier. 

 

And as he goes out that night, with his team in his ear, he knows that Felicity is watching the candles burn down, he knows that she’s keeping them safe, just as he works to keep her safe, to keep the whole city safe. 

 

Being Jewish and being a superhero are the most important things in his life, and he never thought he’d meet someone who could understand them both. But here he is, and he’s glad he has Felicity as his friend, on his team.


	47. Chapter 47

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> captaincoldallen sent: For the dctv Hannukah prompt: Ray accidentally burning a hole in his Hannukah sweater lighting the first candle (and maybe borrowing/stealing one of the other Legends' Hannukah sweaters)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dctv chanukkah event

“Raymond, why don’t you just–”

 

Ray shakes his head at Leonard. “No, I can do it! I use a blowtorch all the time, I think I can handle lighting the hanukkiah.” 

 

Leonard steps back, hands raised in surrender. Somewhere behind them, someone snickers. Sara, probably. Ray ignores her studiously as he lights a match and holds the flame over the wick of the shamash. 

 

It catches…and so does the sleeve of his sweater. 

 

“Crap!” Ray says, shaking out his sleeve. This time Leonard snickers as he grabs a glass of water and pours it neatly over the smoldering edge of Ray’s sweater. 

 

“Definitely more dangerous than a blowtorch,” he teases, but his eyes and fingers sweep over the burnt area, checking for damage on more than just the article of clothing. 

 

“I’m fine,” Ray mutters, “can you just light the first candle so we can say the prayers and then I can change?” 

 

Leonard nods, lifting the shamash delicately out of the holder and touching the flame to the unlit candle, watching as the flame flares to life. 

 

“Baruch atah Adonai–” he starts, and Ray stumbles to catch up, finishing the prayer more or less in unison. Leonard looks at him amused as they move on to the second prayer, and then the shehecheyanu. 

 

“Good job,” Nate teases as they’re done and Ray strips off his obnoxious, light-up Chanukkah sweater. “This is what you get for wearing that monstrosity!”

 

“As if your Christmas sweaters are any better!” Ray quips back, grinning. His arm is no worse for the wear, a little red, but nothing lasting, and he slips out, heading back to his and Leonard’s room for a new sweater. 

 

He could have Gideon print him up a new ugly Chanukkah sweater, but Leonard just had a nice one printed up for himself that he’d planned to wear tomorrow, and Ray would rather steal  _his_. 

 

So Ray wanders back out to the Chanukkah celebrations, wearing a sweater that fits just perfectly, since Leonard likes sweaters a little loose, and the look on Leonard’s face as he does makes the threat of burn all the worth it. 


	48. Chapter 48

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jewishraypalmer sent: wow, can you believe it’s day two already?? i’d love to hear about felicity smoak + food

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dctv chanukkah event

Her mother had stacks of recipes, half-finished, half-nonsense. 

 

“It’s all in my head, sweetie,” Donna would say to young Felicity, as she tore apart the kitchen. “I know what I’m doing.”

 

Sometimes things didn’t catch on fire.

 

But it’s something Felicity takes with her when she starts running her own holidays, when she starts making Chanukkah meals. Oliver is useless, but Thea isn’t. 

 

Thea gets it when Felicity says, “Sprinkle just a smidge of pepper,” “Add a handful of shredded carrots to the latke mixture,” “Just do it by feel.”

 

Because Felicity can’t put into words what that feels like. “It’s just a feeling, Oliver!” 

 

“Like this?” Thea asks. 

 

Yes. Like that.

 

So Chanukkah cooking always turns into Felicity and Thea, dancing around each other in the kitchen, and her apartment has never felt more like home than with the smell of soup simmering, of latkes frying. 


	49. Chapter 49

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jewishraypalmer sent: day 3 get lit!!! how about um, the erasure of rays judaism!!! i’m mad!!!! let’s fix it!!!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dctv chanukkah event

Ray didn’t talk much about his Judaism in the beginning. Why make a scene, he thought. Sit through the Christmas celebrations and laugh, ignore the feeling of  _wrong_. No need to light the Chanukkah candles, they’re on a time ship and there’s no lunar calendar in the temporal zone. 

 

But they defeat Savage and start slowing their pace, and Ray starts to feel…wrong. The last time he celebrated a Jewish holiday was with Felicity, and who knows how long ago that was. 

 

He misses it. 

 

So he goes to Sara, a few days before Chanukkah and tells her. 

 

Her response is to smack him in the arm. “Why didn’t you say anything?” she half-yells. “All this time, and you didn’t tell us? What the hell, Ray?” 

 

“It wasn’t a big deal,” he says, trying to shuffle it off, trying to push it away. 

 

“It is a big deal, Ray!” she retorts. “In your own words, we’re a  _family_ , and this is something you tell your family. Did you think we wouldn’t support you?” 

 

He shrugs. 

 

Sara sighs. “Of course we’ll celebrate Chanukkah,” she says. “I’m sure Martin wouldn’t mind having a celebration with us, as well, in addition to his family.” 

 

So they do, they celebrate, they light the candles. And once Marty finds out that Ray is Jewish, Ray gets dragged to the High Holy day services at Marty’s shul as well. 

 

He loves it, he loves all of it, and he realizes that there was never any need to hide himself away. That leaving that part of him out of the equation meant the equation was incomplete. 

 

It’s nice to be complete again.


	50. Chapter 50

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jewishraypalmer sent: day 4 already? channukah is going by so fast! i’d love to hear about the lance sisters + their jewish memories though

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dctv chanukkah event
> 
> chapter warnings: laurel lance death mention, grieving

Sara leaves a stone on Laurel’s grave, kneeling on the grass, not caring about the stains on her jeans. 

 

Laurel isn’t buried in a Jewish cemetery, and Sara isn’t sure if she regrets it. She’s not sure if she regrets picking her father’s side over her mother’s. 

 

She didn’t feel Jewish, really, not ever, until recently. She had to be dragged kicking and screaming to Hebrew school, even as Laurel loved it. She skipped Sunday school more often than not, choosing to go on adventures with her friends instead, in the woods surrounding her synagogue. 

 

Her mother yelled and her father sighed, but they gave up making her go eventually. 

 

She wishes she’d gone more, now. Laurel loved it so much, loved learning, loved all the stories and the morals and the community. Tikkun Olam, repair the world. Laurel Lance, always trying to save the world. It was the perfect place for her. 

 

Not for Sara. But she wishes she had the comfort, now. The community. A place to go home to, like Laurel did. To be around all those people who loved Laurel, without feeling out of place. Like she doesn’t belong. Like she’s been dead twice over–three times, if you count everyone thinking she was dead–and back again. 

 

Like she’s looked into the face of evil again and again, and that entering this sacred space is sacrilegious on its own somehow. 

 

So she leaves a stone on her sister’s grave, one of the stones that she’s been collecting, wherever she goes. Handfuls of stones to leave for Laurel; places she’s been, places she wishes Laurel could have seen. 

 

This way, if she can’t bring Laurel with her on her adventures, at least she can bring a little bit of her adventures to Laurel.


	51. Chapter 51

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> frostyriphunter sent: Martin + Family ?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dctv chanukkah event

How do you choose between family? 

 

Between your blood and your, well, your nuclear-powered other half? 

 

Between your blood and this family of misfits you’ve collected. Or, really, been absorbed by. The collecting wasn’t done by you, it was done around you. 

 

It was done because you were all the same, at the core. All, as Jax said, broken pieces. You like to think, at your highest and mightiest moments that you weren’t one. A broken piece, I mean. 

 

But you were. Without Ronnie, you were lost. With Jax, you were still lost. Treating him like a kid, talking down to him. He wasn’t a partner, he was a snot-nosed 20-year-old, with his whole life ahead of him.

 

Really, you were afraid of losing him. You’ve said it, but have you said it enough? You were afraid of walking up to his mother’s door, of knocking, of watching her collapse in on herself. To lose her son, to be left truly alone. 

 

So you were harsh and standoffish and  _cruel_ , even, at times. 

 

More than at times. Often. 

 

But  _family_. 

 

Somewhere along the way, they became your family. Jax became a son, as dear to you as Lily, as the daughter you didn’t even have until recently, but the daughter you wouldn’t give up for the whole world. You wouldn’t give Jax up for the whole world, either. Or your family–the Legends, I mean. Not your blood family, although the sentiment applies to them, too. 

 

But you’re  _tired_. You’re tired, and you have a  _grandchild_. And don’t you want to stop running? Leave the superheroing to the younger generation? To those spry, hurting, lonely, brilliant people you’ve come to love with all your heart? 

 

To leave is to rip out a part of you, but you have to do that anyway, to separate from Jax. To feel alone in your own head again, something you’ve wished for for so long and yet now that it’s here you’re dreading it like a week straight of trips to the dentist. 

 

Without anything to numb the pain. No laughing gas, no anesthetics. Just loneliness. 

 

But  _family_. Family is the balm, you remind yourself, after. It’s Chanukkah, and you’re wearing that ugly sweater that Clarissa dug up just for the occasion. And there’s singing and prayers and laughter and love and the Legends aren’t there, they’re having their own Chanukkah celebrations, and you feel. 

 

Alone. 

 

And alive. 

 

And loved.

 

You’re split in two, but this time, you’re alone in your own head. 


	52. Chapter 52

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jewishraypalmer sent: day 5 wowie. ok how about this: caitlin snow and dreidel. i feel like she’d vibe w it

_Frosty_  played dreidel with  _her_  team, with  _her_ friends. 

 

It’s not  _fair._  Not that Caitlin is pouting, not that she’s upset that her alter-ego seems to fit in better with her team. 

 

“No, it’s fine,” Caitlin says, for the millionth time, “I’m  _glad_  she’s having fun, really.” 

 

“Cait,  _please_ ,” Cisco pleads, tugging at her arm. “We want to play again with  _you_.” 

 

“No, no, you had your fun with her. Did you eat all the gelt already?”

 

“Harry bought more–Caitlin, come  _on_.” 

 

She lets Cisco drag her back into the Cortex, where a handful of small, multi-colored dreidels sit in a pile on the table. Harry, Iris, Joe, and Barry are there, waiting for her. 

 

They look…slightly uncomfortable, and Cait wants to shrink into the floor. What is so great about  _Killer Frost_  that her friends would rather hang out with her than with Caitlin herself? 

 

But she tries to shake it off, tries to focus on spinning, on winning, on having fun. And it works. Mostly. Sometimes one of them will say something, or look at her in a certain way, and she’ll think about… _her_. 

 

Finally, it’s enough, and she snaps. “Why do you like her better than me?” she spits out. The dreidel that Cisco was spinning falls, but nobody looks to see what it landed on. They all look at her. 

 

“We  _don’t_ ,” Barry insists.

 

“You keep saying that,” Caitlin says, “but clearly she’s more fun, more interesting, and less of a downer! I’ll just go and let you guys have fun with her.” 

 

“Caitlin!” Iris shouts, and Cait, half-ice, stops. The ice fades. “Caitlin,” Iris continues, her voice calmer. “You’re part of the family. We’re not getting close with your alter-ego because she’s better than you. She  _is_  you, and we’re trying to get the two of you on the same page. So you can be her and be with us, and be you as well. So you’re not split between two world. We’re trying to keep you with us, by getting her to trust us. We care about you, Caitlin.” 

 

She looks around the table, at her friends nodding. She’s overwhelmed, nervous, and uncomfortable, so she picks up the nearest dreidel, spinning it with a flick of her fingers. 

 

“Gimmel!” she cries, her voice too shrill, her hands shaking slightly. But her team, her  _friends_ , pretend not to notice as they push the pile of chocolate in her direction. 

 

She doesn’t feel fully placated, and she still feels like something’s missing, but she lets herself relax, and she lets herself keep kicking her friends’ butts at dreidel. 


	53. Chapter 53

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cainifer asked: Constantine + Commitment

He’s not quite a lone wolf because he likes an audience, or at least he tells himself that’s why, but he can’t quite stay still. 

 

He can’t stay in one place, and he says it’s because the demons he’s fighting are all over. Demons are everywhere, anywhere, and if he stays in one place he can’t save  _everyone_. 

 

And that’s true. Really, it is. 

 

But there’s something else that keeps him always moving, keeps him light on his feet and running, always running. 

 

If he stays in one place for too long, if he puts down roots, if he falls in  _love_ , then maybe his own demons will catch up with him. 

 

So he runs, and he keeps running, and sometimes, maybe, he wishes he could stop. 


	54. Chapter 54

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked: timehex + surprises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> spoilers for the s3 finale, [character] death mention but also a fix-it

Jonah thought he was used to it. He thought, enough times of those Godforsaken Miscreants showing up on his doorstep, that he’d given up on being surprised.

 

He’d thought, after that giant blue hell-beast blew through town, and walloped that winged creature, that he was fresh out. 

 

And it doesn’t matter anyway, because the Cap told him that Rip was dead; that he’d died to give them all time to regroup, to plan, to work it all out. And if Rip is dead, then Jonah can hide behind a smile–after all, nobody looks too close at Jonah’s smile. 

 

Even that sweet girl with dark hair and darker eyes–Zari, she says–doesn’t look past the half-smile he gives her. She’s interested in him as a relic, as a curiosity, and he’s used to it. At least it’s about his place in the timeline, not his face. That’s a nice change, and he takes to her quickly. 

 

He takes to her, and banters with her, and uses it to hide that gaping hole; that  _surprise_ that Rip, so eternal seeming, so endlessly  _there_ , could ever be gone. 

 

At least he’s not surprised when the Legends leave, in as big a whirlwind as they rolled into town on, and silence settles upon Salvation. 

 

He wonders if the Legends know about the destruction they leave in their wake, if they know, even with the memories they wipe with that flash of light, how empty it all seems when they all pack up and leave. How everything has to go back to normal, to settle back down, like they were never there, like they didn’t just shake the very foundations of the soul, and then disappear into the sky like angels. 

 

Like true angels: terror and beauty all wrapped up in one overlarge, ever-changing unknowable shape. 

 

And Rip is still gone. 

 

And Jonah thinks he’s all out of surprises.

 

Until the sky opens again, a little patch of sky, so close and yet so far, and a skinny auburn-haired man in a tattered, brown coat  _falls_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://jewishgarygreen.tumblr.com/post/173421451494/timehex-surprises)


	55. Chapter 55

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked: Amaya + her totem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

It’s funny, before the Legends ever showed up and threw her life into chaos, she viewed her totem differently. She belonged to it, it was her legacy, her destiny, her whole world. It was something she owed, something she must respect and treasure. 

 

That part didn’t change, she still respects it, still treasures it. But, now, after the Legends, she doesn’t view it as a chain, as an anchor. Her totem is freedom. 

 

She is not bound to it, and it is not bound to her; their relationship is, instead, symbiotic. They feed each other, grow with each other, hurt with each other. 

 

It is still her legacy and her destiny and her birthright, but that no longer feels like a weight on her shoulders. Now, it feels like flying. 


End file.
